[fan] fourth talisman 01 - nocturne Read online

For a moment, he looked as though he might speak. His eyes searched hers, but then a door seemed to close.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said with quiet desperation. “Truly it doesn’t, Nazafareen.”

  She folded her arms. “You may think you’re protecting me, but the not knowing is worse. Did I do something wrong? Was I some kind of monster?”

  “No.” He turned away. “Not you.”

  2

  Faravahar

  Darius strode into the darkness, hand instinctively dropping to his hip. No sword hung there anymore, yet in moments of anger, he found himself reaching for it just the same.

  I am no longer the satrap’s dog, sent out with a pat on the head to hunt and kill, he thought savagely. Those days are over.

  If only she would let it go. Darius would be happy to trade places with her. To not remember the horrors of the empire. If he’d cared to analyze his own reluctance—which he didn’t—he might have found a tangled thread of self-loathing at the heart of it. But Darius had learned from an early age to lock his feelings away and try to forget them. It was how he’d survived.

  So he went straight to his workroom and picked up a chisel instead, delicately chipping away at a piece of ash he was carving into a figurine. Bonewood swords and bows were the most popular items they traded with the Marakai, but Darius refused to make weapons.

  Nazafareen misunderstood. He hadn’t lied to her, not precisely. He’d told her they’d served as soldiers to a crumbling empire, what was called a bonded pair. How they had fought the undead Druj together, and even worse things. How Nazafareen had given her hand to save him—though he’d been vague about the details. And how Neblis, the daēva queen who controlled the Druj armies, had summoned her brother Culach through the gate that linked their two worlds. Nazafareen used her power to defeat Culach’s invasion but she’d paid a high price, losing her memories and nearly her life.

  It was all true.

  But her instincts were also correct. Darius had not told her everything.

  He paused, the piece of ash in his hand forgotten, and glanced at a small lacquered box in the corner where he kept his cuff. Pure gold and engraved with the image of a snarling griffin, the cuff was a talisman that required fire to work. Once, when Nazafareen wore its match around her wrist, the cuffs had contained their bond. He missed it desperately.

  If he told her the truth—all of it—she would see the bond as an evil thing, and he couldn’t bear that. So he had…glossed over certain things. And sworn his father Victor and mother Delilah to secrecy about it.

  Darius felt himself grow calmer as he shaped the piece of wood, using both tools and trickles of earth power. Working wood was the place where he lost himself, where he escaped from the simmering tension with Nazafareen. He loved her, perhaps too much.

  She thinks I love her for who she used to be, but in truth she was the same in all the ways that matter. If only she wasn’t so stubborn…

  A heavy tread on the stairs announced the arrival of his father.

  “I’m heading out to the border,” Victor said by way of greeting. “I thought you might come.”

  “I’m busy,” Darius replied, briefly glancing up and returning to his work.

  He’d said no repeatedly, but Victor wouldn’t stop asking. He was a large man, taller than Darius with broad shoulders and black hair. Victor still wore a sword, though the other Danai carried bows. He’d bought one for Darius from the Marakai traders. Darius didn’t want it. He’d given it to Nazafareen instead; even one-handed, she was deadly with a blade. Victor hadn’t been offended. Instead, he’d taken to sparring with her. The two were much alike in some ways.

  “We could use someone with your skill, both as a tracker and fighter,” Victor persisted. He glanced out the window. “Galen is coming.”

  Every day since they’d come to Nocturne, Victor led a patrol to the northern reaches of the forest, where the River Arnor marked the end of the Danai lands and the foothills of the Valkirin mountains began their sharp rise from the earth. Val Moraine, the ancestral seat of their enemies, lay a mere twenty leagues beyond the river. So far, the border had been quiet.

  “It’s a chance to get to know your brother,” Victor said.

  “Half-brother,” Darius replied. He and Galen had different mothers. Victor didn’t see it, but Darius got the impression Galen didn’t like him very much. “And I’ve told you before. I don’t wish to be a soldier anymore, not even for you.”

  His father sighed. “We’re doing this to protect Nazafareen.”

  “Are you?” Darius lay down the chisel and picked up a rasp. “I wonder sometimes.”

  Victor scowled, his dark brows drawing together. “What does that mean?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Say it.”

  Darius looked up. “All right. You have a grudge against Culach and his entire holdfast.”

  His father’s dark eyes flashed. “Am I the only one who understands they’re still a threat? We should finish them now, while they’re weakened. But Tethys won’t listen. She’s afraid of starting a war.”

  “And you aren’t?” Darius shook his head. “Haven’t you had enough of fighting?”

  “And what about Nazafareen? Will she hide here forever? That’s no life.”

  The words came too close to what Darius had been thinking himself. He could tell she was nearing a breaking point. Neither of them truly fit in here. The Danai tolerated her for Victor’s sake, but she was a mortal—and she had enemies.

  “You’re right. Which is why I think we should leave.”

  “And go where?”

  Darius had considered the matter carefully. Even if they went to a distant Danai settlement, she could still be found.

  “The Isles of the Marakai.”

  Victor frowned. “Have you discussed this with her?”

  “Not yet. I’ll ask Tethys first. See if she can make arrangements the next time they come to trade.”

  “Running away,” Victor said with flat disapproval.

  “Call it what you will. At least she’ll be safe.” He gave Victor a long look. “Don’t tell her until I talk to Tethys.”

  Victor shook his head. “You keep too many secrets. It will poison you both.”

  Darius glanced out the window to where Galen waited with a group of young daēvas. They worshipped Victor. He was a charismatic man, handsome in a brutal way, the hardships he’d suffered writ across his face. Victor was a near legend at House Dessarian. He’d vanished through the gate to the shadowlands more than two hundred years before and his sudden return—with a new wife and son, and mortal girl with strange powers—had caused quite a stir.

  Not everyone was glad to see him. Victor had recruited friends for his misadventure, most of whom hadn’t come back. But the younger daēvas—the ones who didn’t know better—were quite taken with him. Some had even started to wear swords in imitation of their returned hero. Darius knew Victor hadn’t told them the whole truth either.

  “I’ll tell her about the Marakai tomorrow,” he said.

  “You should tell her all of it.” Victor studied him. “If she loves you, it won’t change anything.”

  When Darius didn’t respond, he turned and headed back down the stairs, to Galen and the other Danai sentries. Darius watched out the window as they vanished like mist into the woods.

  He returned to the figurine he was carving. A bearded man with spreading eagle wings. It was one of the queer aspects of this world that it mirrored the one he had come from in many ways. The faravahar was the symbol of the Prophet, whom the mortals revered in Samarkand—just as they had in the empire. This piece would be shipped off through the Marakai to the Persian cities of Solis, where such religious trinkets were sold on the streets.

  Darius used to wear one around his own neck. He’d given it to Nazafareen when they’d ridden into the Dominion to find Victor. He still believed in the Way of the Flame—good thoughts, good words, good deeds—even if he hated the magi. Dark t
houghts crowded in again.

  Darius picked up the chisel again.

  3

  Breaker

  Nazafareen changed out of her wet clothes, pulling on a fresh tunic and trousers. She was still angry but more than that, she felt restless, unmoored. She despised sitting around doing nothing. Victor refused to let her join his patrols lest she be seen. She couldn’t learn to shape wood with only one hand. And her only real power was both useless and dangerous. Like the cuffs, the breaking magic drew on fire. Using too much had set a blaze in her own body, an inferno that was only extinguished when she passed through the gate to Nocturne.

  But she might have other talents she didn’t know about. It all came back to that. If nothing else, restoring her memory would make her feel whole again. Then she could decide where she belonged—Nocturne, or back in her own world.

  Nazafareen stared at the scattered playing pieces on the table. She was tired of being told what to do. Tired of waiting for others to move her about as they saw fit. If Darius wouldn’t tell her the truth, she’d find someone who would. Not Victor—he made excuses every time she sought him out. And Delilah, Darius’s mother, had never liked her.

  But Tethys…she might know things.

  Nazafareen had met the matriarch of House Dessarian only once, when Tethys came to inspect this mortal woman Victor’s son had dragged back with him. She’d uttered a few terse words of welcome, clearly insincere, and then taken her leave in a swirl of green silks. Nazafareen recalled her as tall and whip-thin, with an ability to loom that rivaled Victor’s.

  Tethys had never come again, but Nazafareen knew where she lived. So she gathered her courage and made her way through the woods to a glen where a ring of junipers poked like spears from the earth. The path led to a narrow gap in the trees. Nazafareen followed it through and paused, inhaling the mingled perfume of a hundred different plants. This must be Tethys’s night garden, though it seemed too simple a word for what she’d created. Nazafareen’s fingers brushed a tangle of vines with velvety, half-open buds—then yanked back as a hidden thorn pricked her thumb. She sucked on it and tasted blood. Better to look than touch, perhaps. All the flowers were dark, bruised colors: eggplant purple, wine red, violet blue. Fireflies flashed on and off in the undergrowth like tiny yellow lanterns.

  Nazafareen drew a steadying breath, awed by the fairytale quality of the place. At first glance, the garden seemed to have been left to run riot, but closer inspection revealed a master’s hand at work. A subtle order to the chaos. Nazafareen knew all the plants and trees in the Danai lands fed on moonlight. Exactly how was a jealously guarded secret.

  She found Tethys kneeling on a patch of newly-turned earth, planting seedlings with glossy heart-shaped leaves. Tethys had the same dark hair and bird-of-prey nose as Victor and looked only a decade older, although her true age was hundreds of years beyond a mortal lifespan.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” Nazafareen said, feeling like an interloper. “I hoped we could speak.”

  Tethys looked up at her, then patted the dirt with strong, calloused hands. “You think I don’t know where you go?” Her voice was dusty and hard as a dry riverbed. “The gate you shattered is warded again. Someone approached it earlier and I’d reckon that someone was you, child.”

  Nazafareen was twenty years old, but she supposed Tethys would see her as a child still. The daēvas measured such things differently. So Tethys knows. Well, of course she does.

  “I’m sorry. I meant no harm.”

  Tethys moved on to the next seedling, handling it as gently as a newborn infant. “Had you stepped through, you could never return.”

  “I wasn’t planning on leaving. I only wanted to see it. And I never meant to shatter your wards in the first place.” Nazafareen considered, then added ruefully, “Or maybe I did. That’s the problem. I can’t remember.”

  Tethys sighed. “Come, help me. I cannot speak with you like this. I’ll get a crick in my neck.”

  Nazafareen knelt on the ground next to her. Tethys held up a seedling.

  “This is feverbane. The seeds are useful for spicing wine or curing evil humors in the blood. Take it.”

  Nazafareen accepted the seedling with a reverent hand. She poked a hole in the dirt with her finger, then covered the roots and pressed the mound firmly around the fragile plant. Tethys nodded in approval.

  “I would ask you some questions, if you’re willing.”

  Tethys gave her a sidelong glance. “And if I’m not?”

  “I’ll ask them anyway.”

  The Danai woman smiled, a faint twitch of her thin lips. “Go on, then.”

  “I know you helped make the ward I broke. Were my memories erased? Or simply sealed away?” She hesitated, fearing the answer. “Could they be restored?”

  Tethys picked up another plant and eased it from the pot. “Such a thing has never happened before. But I examined you quite thoroughly before you woke, when Darius first brought you here.”

  “Yes, he did tell me that. He said I couldn’t be cured.”

  “And that is the truth.”

  Nazafareen’s heart fell.

  “Not by me, at least,” Tethys added.

  “By who then?”

  Tethys gave her a hard look. “Are you sure you wish to know? Some people might see it as a gift. A chance to start life anew without the burden of regret.”

  Nazafareen shook her head. “If I have regrets, they are mine. And how can I learn from them if I don’t know what they are? No. I wish to learn the truth.” She hesitated. “Has Darius spoken of me?”

  “If you’re asking whether I’m privy to the secrets he keeps, the answer is no. Darius doesn’t confide in me. He may be my grandson, but we hardly know each other.”

  “Then who can help me?”

  Tethys considered her question for a long moment. “The Marakai are the strongest healers among us. Water is the essence of healing and that is their gift. They can accomplish wonders, but we are speaking of physical wounds. Your injury is to the mind.”

  “The Marakai. You mean the sea daēvas?”

  Tethys nodded.

  “But they might know a way?”

  “They might. Who can say?”

  “I think I must go ask them then.”

  “We send a delegation to the shore of the White Sea twice a year, to trade. I suppose you could go along next time.”

  Nazafareen tamped down her impatience. “And when will that be?”

  “Three more waxings of Selene,” Tethys said placidly.

  “So long?”

  Tethys looked at her strangely. “Long to you perhaps.” Her tone sharpened. “Do you have complaints about your treatment here? Are we such poor company?”

  “Not at all,” Nazafareen said hastily. “And I thank you for the offer. I suppose I’ll have to wait then.”

  They planted the last of the seedlings. Tethys rose to her feet, brushing earth from her hands. She turned to Nazafareen.

  “There is something else?” she asked with touch of asperity.

  “What do you know about breaking magic?”

  “In Tjanjin, they call it huo mofa. It is a rare ability, and dangerous to the user. But I suppose you know that already.”

  “But where does it come from? Is there a way to use it safely?”

  Tethys eyed her with pity. “I don’t know the first. As to the second…better not to touch it at all, don’t you think?” She looked pointedly at the path into the woods. “You’d best run along now, child. You oughtn’t be wandering alone anyway.”

  Nazafareen suppressed a sigh and made her farewells.

  That’s what they all said.

  She hurried along the dark path, lost in thought. Would Darius go with her to the Marakai? Would he support her in this? If not, she would go anyway.

  She threw open her front door and groped for the peg. Moonlight spilled in a broad shaft through the window. She smelled something, queer and cold, like the air just before it snows. Th
at rarely happened in the Danai forest, their magic kept it from freezing despite the lack of sun, but sometimes a storm blew in from the Valkirin range that was too strong even for the daēvas to divert. Then she heard a soft creak from one of her chairs. So Darius had returned. Well, she would ask him now. No point in putting it off. And if he said yes, perhaps they could leave right away.

  Nazafareen reached for air and lit the lumen crystal—and froze.

  A man sat at her table, but it wasn’t Darius. He had long silver hair and a foxlike face. White leathers trimmed with fur covered him from head to foot. A long sword inlaid with jewels rode at his hip. He held her astrolabe in slender, pale fingers.

  “Hello, mortal,” he said.

  Nazafareen opened her mouth to reply and found she couldn’t draw breath. Something squeezed her lungs in a cold vise. He stood and walked over to her, frowning. He moved with the prowling grace of a daēva, but not a Danai. Not with those icy looks.

  They’ve found me.

  “So young,” he murmured, studying her face with luminous green eyes. A shadow of unease flickered across his features. Then his gaze fell to her stump and hardened. “You’re the Breaker who burned my clan.”

  Nazafareen heard the rasp of a sword leaving the scabbard. Black motes danced before her eyes. He had her pinned as neatly as the snake.

  How strong he was! She dimly sensed he was using air to hold her, to gag her, simple air, and yet it felt hard as marble. Frantic, she eyed her own sword. It leaned against the wall near the door. She strained and it toppled over, then began to slide ever so slowly across the floor.

  The Valkirin watched it with an amused expression.

  “You cannot harm me now, can you?” He raised his own blade. Again, she saw a shadow of regret cross his face, quickly stifled. “I vow to make it swift. Swifter than the death you gave my cousins.”

  The door to the room burst open with an explosive crash, nearly tearing free of its hinges from the violence of the blow. Darius rushed inside. His wintry gaze fell on the Valkirin. Earth magic surged in a roaring, bone-jarring tide. The ground convulsed beneath Nazafareen’s feet, clods of dirt scattering outward. The web of air snaring her fell away. She coughed, left hand clutching her throat. The Valkirin vaulted through the window. Darius followed.